Windows Licencing Question

SouperComputer

MS's lines are closed and the info online is not so transparent.

Just looking for your thoughts on this.

Customer presents a computer from a major manufacturer, dell, sony, IBM whatever and windows has to be reinstalled.

The computer contains a valid COA, however, the customer no longer has the original Windows Media Disk, as it was not either supplied or lost.

The customer is well known, and the legitimacy of the computer is assumed to be true in utmost good faith.

What media, can you legitmatly reinstall windows with? If you have an original Holographic disk is that enough? I am looking at this from the point of view of M$ here.

Two other things:

I got a Toshiba laptop with a azerty keyboard for a windows reinstall. The COA is there, but it does not mention the operating system or the vendor which was starange. Could this be a pirated COA, or is it just a different batch from abroad?

Anyway, it had Windows 2000 english installed when I arrived with me. I reinstalled in english with the COA key on the base with no problems.

Playing devils advocate, if the machine left the factory with say, French windows 2000 on it, would the licence key still be legit in M$'s eyes?

masteroftherealm

Yo dude! With the first one, of they don't have all their original documentation discs and codes Microsoft says they have to get a new copy at least thats how it works here.

Second one just sounds weird. Possibily pirated??

Capt'n Midnight

Is the COA from a cert or Serial from something like Keyfinder ?

If you have the cert then its probably legit since almost all Brand named pc shipped with windows and the number of windows refunds is maybe one in a million. If it's a dell you could ring them with the TAG to see what shipped with it. Some corporate customers may have shipped without windows but I'd suspect that would only apply to MAJOR accounts. Some Poweredges / Workstations may have shipped with red hat or without any OS.

The French one , IIRC M$ don't allow you to use a different language, there is an upgrade but only for corporates.

Media probably means nothing, you don't even get it when you get corporate licenses, You have to order it seperately.

With the CD, the fact that the company who sold it only shipped windows on 99.9% of the models of that type, and a valid serial number, you think you'd be covered.

SouperComputer

i was thinking along your lines capt'n

The serial I am talking about looks like a genuine looking COA on the base of a toshiba laptop, but on the COA sticker, there is no mention of what OS it belongs to. Wierd.

Should be interesting to see what M$ have to say on Monday

Capt'n Midnight

There should be another number on the COA X##-#### for the part number.

Real pain office 95 and windows 95 used the same serials and virtually identical COA's and the the Cert fell of the books over time

The X05-59722 number at the bottom of this COA tells you the product type - but I can't confirm if it's just the Sticker P/N or the OS P/N till I compare to some at work
http://www.pcfree.com.cn/cn/purchase-guide/purchase-experience/2004/08/28/image/2004614276.jpg

http://www.thetechguide.com/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t713.html - has some X05 type part numbers - http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=269

SouperComputer

if it is missing the part number, is it most likely bent?

I dont have it to hand, but im getting someone to check it out for me on Monday.

Capt'n Midnight

Probably not, since most of the major manu's shipped windows with most PC's. The date should give an indication as to whether it could have shipped with ME/2K or 2K/XP. Home Vs. Pro is different matter, home user PC's like inspiron/amarda would probably be Home but possibly Pro, the more expensive business systems would be the opposite, with a tiny chance of No OS shipped or an old one like NT if it was originally purchased by a huge corpoate that had open licenses - not your average SME. Again you may be able to ring up the manu with the serial and ask - and find out if Office or Works shipped at the same time.

IIRC even if you upgrade OEM windows you can't move it to a different PC unless you enrole it in SA within the first 60/09 days - and that's unlikely.

If you upgrade Novell 3.12 to NT then the conditions of use of NT means you can only run NT if you don't use the Novell license on another machine, fair enough. But if you upgrade Novell to NT does that invalidate the Novell license altogether ? Can you remove NT and put Novell back on the server lateron on the basis that the Novell license agreement is not with Microsoft and you aren't using NT anymore ?

SouperComputer

x06-21567 is the part number on this.

Google turns up nothing, as does the site mentioned above. Very wierd!

laurenz

i know im bumping the post

i searched myself for the x06-21567 number as wel.
im working with a company that deals in refurbisment and various types of laptops

i got the X06-21567 license on one where the letters that say wich type of OS it has been worne off

but i had a little number of 25 other laptops also with a license. so i check them all for that nummer

i dont know of your still searching for it but its a w2000 pro license

now i'm back to work